Writing The Opening Line
The opening line is your first opportunity to make an impression and entice your readers. You should want the opening line to work for the story and be meaningful, but at the same time you don’t want it to do too much. Finding that balance, and not letting the search intimidate you, is – in my opinion – one of the hardest parts about starting a novel.
The first step is writing the opening line, and it can feel the most intimidating.
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By the time I sit down at my computer, the familiar and always exciting expanse of a blank Word page confronting me, I always have a clear vision of what I want to happen in my story. If you’re like me, you might even have a detailed outline of every scene that you plan to write, and know every emotion that you imagine the characters going through. And still, even with a blueprint, the first line never fails to stump me.
So, here are a few things that help me get over that hurdle.
The Mindset
In college, one of my professors was self-involved enough to make us read his published short stories as assignments and then discuss them in class. From these clearly delightfully intellectual conversations, I learned that my professor was the type of writer who obsessed over every single line as he wrote it. A sentence might come to him and he would jot it down, and instead of the writing flowing from one line to the next, he would stop and make sure that sentence was perfect before moving on. Even though I personally don’t recommend this as a writing technique for an entire story or novel, I do think it’s a workable option for creating an opening line. Sometimes, especially for perfectionists, a rock-solid opening line will give you the confidence to flow and write freely from that point on.
In contrast to the perfectionist route, is the leave it until later mentality. One of my friends recently told me that when their mom walks her dogs she will sometimes bag up their poop and then hide the bags behind nearby trees or telephone poles so that she doesn’t have to carry them for the rest of the walk. She picks them up on the way back to the house and throws them away once she’s home. My opinion on this aside, I think that thought process can be applied to creating the opening line of a story. Sometimes, you just write whatever might get the ball rolling (a million bad words, even). It might be misspelled, grammatically incorrect, or cliché, but if leaving the bagged-up line behind frees you up for the rest of your metaphoric walk, then let it go. Dive into your scene and circle back later. Revise the opening line so that it shines like the rest of the writing you were able to accomplish by not getting held up.
Steal An Opening Line
Obviously, I’m not suggesting plagiarizing.
Sometimes, if I’m really stuck, I’ll look at the opening lines in novels that I’m reading at the time. Or, if there’s a novel that I would consider some comp titles for my work or something that emulates what I’m trying to achieve, I see how that author begins and use it to inspire my own beginning. I don’t copy the line, but sometimes I might see how the line is used, what it’s setting up, and compare it to the scene I envision for my opening. If I’m opening in action, then I might look at books that do that and see if they start with the character in motion, or maybe they open with a line of dialogue. Some novels open with interiority. The interiority can immediately drop readers down into the emotion of the character or it could be telling about the situation or scene the character is currently in.
Essentially, you can use the books that inspire you as models for your own writing. Ask yourself why that opening line works for you and see how you can create that same satisfaction and engagement with your own writing.
Don’t Overthink It
This is perhaps the most important suggestion I can make. The opening line does a lot, whether you’re writing a novel, a short story, a memoir, an article, or a poem. It should capture your/the character’s voice, it should carry your style, and it should be relevant and meaningful enough to engage readers and entice them on to the next line. However, it should not be so heavy that it weighs on you, or so “literary” that it chases away or confuses your readers. You don’t have to make a profound statement with your opening line because you could make the profound statement at the end of your opening paragraph, or your entire story could be the profound statement. All you need is to string a few words together in such a way that you – as the writer – can keep writing, and eventually the readers will keep reading.
The opening line is as daunting as you make it.
*whispers* so don’t make it daunting at all!
I’d love to help you with your opening line (and all the lines after that) as your editor! Book me at Good Story Editing.
